Tangy-sweet and buttery, these cut-out lemon shortbread cookies are a ray of sunshine on a plate. The texture strikes a wonderful balance of crumbly, crunchy, soft, and tender. Roll out the dough and cut into your choice of shapes. Enjoy plain, topped with sparkling sugar, or dipped in an easy lemon icing that sets.
Among all the holiday cookies, from spiced (molasses cookies) to rich (crinkle cookies) to sweet (Christmas sugar cookies), it’s so refreshing to have a burst of citrus in the mix.
It’s why I love these lemon crinkle cookies and these cranberry orange icebox cookies at the holidays. (Though of course you can—and should!—make these sunny lemon treats year round!!)
Some of my favorite shortbread recipes include these shortbread wedge cookies (customizable with different add-ins); sweet & salty chocolate pistachio shortbread; and slice-and-bake-style pecan shortbread & brown sugar shortbread. Today’s recipe is practically the same as my beloved shortbread cookies, which are baked in round cake pans.
For today’s version, we are flavoring it with oodles of lemon and cutting it into shapes with cookie cutters, just like we do with sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies.
Traditional shortbread recipes are made with a 3-2-1 ratio: 3 parts flour, 2 parts butter, and 1 part sugar. Sometimes there’s vanilla and salt, too, but there’s no egg and no leavening agent. As I have tested many, many shortbread cookie recipes over the years, I’ve played around a lot with the ingredients, so you’ll notice the ratio I use is not the exact 3-2-1 of traditional shortbread.
Start by pulsing the sugar and lemon zest together in a food processor. (I use and love this one.) This step at the beginning is key to these lemon shortbread cookies, because it 1) breaks down the sugar granules and lemon zest into a finer consistency, 2) extracts some of the oil from the lemon peel, which moistens the sugar, and 3) infuses more flavor into the dough because it is then creamed with butter (fat carries flavor).
Beautifully infused lemon sugar:
Once you have your lemon sugar, from here on you’re making an easy 1-bowl cookie dough. Cream the butter and lemon sugar together, and then add the lemon juice and vanilla.
Finally, mix in the dry ingredients. Beat on low speed to begin bringing all of the ingredients together. The dough will be crumbly at first, but then clump up as you increase the mixer speed.
This is the same order of steps as my sugar cookies recipe, and we do it this way because after chilling, the dough will be quite stiff and much more difficult to roll out.
With a floured rolling pin, roll out the soft dough onto a floured piece of parchment paper or silicone baking mat. We want to keep these shortbread cookies on the thicker side, so don’t roll it too thin. Between 1/4 and 1/2 inch is great.
Pick up the parchment/baking mat with the rolled-out dough on it and place the whole thing on a baking sheet and refrigerate it. This dough needs to chill for at least 3 hours before you cut it into shapes and bake it.
The number of cookies you get out of this dough will depend on the size of your cookie cutters. The cookie cutter I used here is 2.25 inches in diameter, and I was able to get 38 cookies after re-rolling the scraps. I use a fluted-edge cookie cutter from this set.
Use a fork to gently poke indents (not holes, don’t push all the way through) in the tops of the cookies before baking. Why? This is really just for looks! Feel free to skip, especially if you plan to cover them in icing.
These lemon shortbread cookies taste great as is, but you’ll especially love them topped with a creamy, dreamy lemon icing. You can simply dip the tops of the cooled cookies in it—no piping bags or tips required.. You could also use cookie decorating buttercream, or lemon buttercream. See frosting recipes for more options.
A sprinkle of fresh lemon zest over the icing adds a little extra zing and is the perfect finishing touch on the iced cookies. The icing sets after about 1 to 2 hours, or you can speed it up a little by placing the iced cookies in the refrigerator.
OR… if you don’t plan to ice these cookies, you can add a sprinkle of coarse sugar or sanding sugar sprinkles before baking, which gives the shortbread a sparkly crunch. I usually reach for white sparkling sugar sold as sprinkles in the baking aisle.
Yes! Simply replace the lemon juice and zest with either fresh lime or orange.
Zesty, buttery, and tangy-sweet, these cut-out lemon shortbread cookies are simply sunshine on a plate. Enjoy plain, topped with sparkling sugar, or dipped in an easy creamy lemon icing. The number of cookies this recipe yields depends on the size of the cookie cutter you use. Be sure to refrigerate the rolled-out dough for at least 3 hours.
